Energy body rejects whistleblower allegations of oil cover up

London, England (CNN) -- The International Energy Agency has rejected reported allegations from a whistleblower that world oil reserves have been exaggerated to avoid panic buying in the oil market.

IEA: something for everybody in the 2009 outlook

Perhaps the most significant numbers in the World Energy Outlook, at least in terms of the current policy and the international climate negotiations, pertain to China. Indeed, the IEA suggests that if China actually follows through on all of the goals and targets it has announced (for renewables, nuclear power, energy efficiency and the like), it alone could account for 25 percent of the reductions that the world needs to make by 2020 in order to remain on track for limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. Put another way, China would be doing more to address global than either the United States or Europe.

The dollar is weak because ...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Here's the latest twist on the timeless chicken versus the egg debate. Which came first: the stock and commodities rally or the weaker dollar?

There is no denying that the dollar has lost a fair amount of ground over the past few months while at the same time, stocks, oil and gold have skyrocketed.

But is there a real cause and effect relation here? And if so, what exactly is it? Has the greenback slid against other currencies because stocks and commodities are surging or is it the other way around?

Mexico: Refining sector could be opened to private participation

Mexico's energy ministry Sener will attempt to open the country's refining sector to private participation in a new energy reform currently being prepared, deputy minister of energy planning Jordy Herrera told reporters at an event in Mexico City.

A proposal by Mexico's President Felipe Calderón in 2008 had the same goal, but it was strongly opposed by the country's political left and not included in the reform that ultimately passed.

Brazil's Petrobras eyes Angola's deep water oil

LUANDA (Reuters) - Brazilian state-owned Petrobras (PETR4.SA: Quote) is interested in developing Angola's ultra-deepwater oil exploration, known as pre-salt, Brazil's Trade and Development Minister Miguel Jorge said on Tuesday.

Angola shares a similar underwater rock formation as Brazil, which in 2007 made a pre-salt discovery of some 8 billion barrels of crude in its Tupi field.

Study: Cooperation key to growth in oil sands supply

HOUSTON, Nov. 10 -- Although the oil sands industry will continue to develop in Alberta despite the jolt it received when oil prices plunged last year, total Canadian oil exports to the US face constraints, according to a study by the Center for Global Energy Studies, London, and Geopolitics Central, Calgary.

Oil sands production will increase by 1.19-1.99 million b/d during 2009-20, depending on the degree of economic and environmental cooperation among major countries, the study says.

Cooperation extensive enough to keep the global recession relatively short and ensure strong and lasting growth afterward would support oil prices and enable oil sands production in Alberta to rise from 1.21 million b/d in 2008 to 3.2 million b/d in 2020.

The Palin Persuasion

The popular and sensible approach to energy policy is obvious. Remove the restrictions on offshore oil exploration--if Obama thinks it's fine for Brazil to drill offshore, why can't the United States? Lower tariffs and reduce subsidies for domestically produced ethanol. Get rid of the regulations limiting the construction of oil refineries. Dismiss airy prophecies about "peak oil," "green jobs," and "limits to growth." Pledge, instead, that Americans will have access to as much of the cheapest, cleanest energy they need to stimulate the economy. Palin is right. No limits. "All of the above" is best.

Carolyn Baker: From The Wilderness To The End Of Civilization

Why would someone go to a movie that is essentially an interview of someone else? Don't we go to movies to be entertained or watch documentaries in order to be inundated with voluminous information and breath-taking cinematography? What would compel anyone to sit for 82 minutes watching some guy chain smoking while he's being interviewed about the collapse of industrial civilization in a room that looks like a bunker?

If incessant adrenalin rushes enhanced by stupefying special effects are what you desire, seeing "Collapse" should be postponed until you are ready to hear, see, and feel how Director Chris Smith's uncanny discernment is brilliantly conveyed in one of the most poignant, but inspiring movies of this decade.

Kenya's wind power project snagged

NAIROBI (AFP) – A Kenyan wind power project aiming to be the biggest in sub-Saharan Africa suffered a setback Tuesday after talks with one of the key investors foundered, an official said.

After the Recession, Will the World Face an Energy Crisis?

Here's the bad news about the global recession potentially coming to an end: the recovery could spark a massive energy crisis with increased demand for fossil fuels from China and other developing countries, tighter oil supplies and skyrocketing oil prices. And this is just in the near future. The longer-term picture looks even more daunting: if the world continues guzzling oil and gas at its present pace, global temperatures will rise by an average of 6 degrees Celsius by 2030, causing "irreparable damage to the planet."

The warning from the International Energy Agency (IEA), an intergovernmental energy watchdog based in Paris, could add extra weight to the negotiations leading up to the climate change summit in Copenhagen next month, where leaders will attempt to come to an agreement on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol limiting greenhouse gas emissions. "Saving the planet cannot wait," reads the agency's annual World Economic Outlook report, which was released Tuesday. "The time to act has arrived."

But the energy crisis may be even more critical than the IEA is saying. According to a report in The Guardian newspaper Tuesday, the organization, under pressure from the U.S., has in past reports deliberately underestimated just how fast the world is running out of oil. The paper quoted an unnamed senior IEA official as saying that the U.S. encouraged the agency to "underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chance of finding new reserves."

Saudis bomb rebels, blockade Yemeni coast: Offensive raises concerns of new proxy war pitting Tehran against Riyadh

CAIRO - Saudi Arabia on Tuesday imposed a naval blockade on the Red Sea coast of northern Yemen to combat Shiite rebels along its border, an adviser to the government said, in the latest escalation of fighting in the southern Arabian peninsula.

The Saudi move comes as Iran, the region's dominant Shiite power accused by the Arabs of backing the rebels, warned neighboring countries not to interfere in Yemen's internal affairs.

Saudi warns Yemeni rebels to retreat from border

SANAA (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday it would continue its offensive against Yemeni rebels unless they retreated well away from its borders, after insurgents said they had seized more territory near the world's largest oil exporter.

Saudi Arabia is getting increasingly drawn into a conflict to its south between the Yemeni government and Shi'ite Muslim rebels, which Riyadh fears could weaken the kingdom's stability.

World needs Canada’s 'dirty oil', says IEA

The world needs Canada's so-called dirty oil, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday even as it called on leaders to make decisive moves to slash greenhouse gas emissions at a United Nations-sponsored negotiating session next month.

"World leaders gathering in Copenhagen next month for the UN Climate Summit have a historic opportunity to avert the worst effects of climate change," IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka said in a statement after releasing the agency's annual World Energy Outlook analysis.

IEA sees 1.3 billion people without power in 2030

LONDON (Reuters) - The proportion of the world's population with access to electricity will rise over the next 20 years but more than a billion people will still be without power in 2030, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday.

The IEA, which advises 28 industrialised countries on energy policy, said most of the people still living without power in 2030 would be in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia with four out of five of these people in rural areas.

World oil demand growth to be led by Asia - IEA

LONDON (Reuters) - China and India will be responsible for most of the world's oil demand growth over the next two decades, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday.

The agency's annual World Energy Outlook said if government policies stay as they are, Indian oil demand is likely to rise by 3.9 percent every year until 2030, while Chinese demand will rise by 3.5 percent annually over the same period.

This compares with just 1 percent year-on-year oil demand growth for the world as a whole. Most industrialised economies in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will see demand fall due to greater energy efficiency.

A developing thirst: How demand for oil will change by 2030

GLOBAL demand for oil is set to rise from 84.7m barrels per day (bpd) in 2008 to 105m bpd in 2030, says the International Energy Agency in its latest annual energy report. Transport will account for 97% of this increase as rising numbers of cars hit the roads of the developing world. Demand from these countries will overtake that of the industrialised OECD nations by 2030. By then, America, Japan and Europe will be using less oil than in 1980. But the thirst for oil will balloon in Asia—and in India and China in particular—where demand is predicted to rise by as much as 400% compared with 2008.

Investment in renewables falls by 20 per cent in 2009

The renewable power sector has been hit by a significant fall in investment over the past year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Energy companies around the world have been cutting back on project spending as a result of falling energy demand faltering cash flows because of the global financial crisis.

However, renewables-based power generation has suffered far worse than any other sector, with investment expected to fall by almost one-fifth.

Gazprom Expects Gas Demand to Recover Within 3 Years

(Bloomberg) -- OAO Gazprom, the world’s biggest natural-gas producer, expects demand for the fuel to rise in the next two or three years, narrowing the oversupply caused by the recession and new production projects.

“We are in a long-term business,” Deputy Chief Executive Officer Alexander Medvedev said today in a Bloomberg Television interview in Washington. “In two, maximum three years, we will be back on track with demand for gas because we see the first signs of economic recovery.”

Iraq's Kurds to hold on to oil revenues -Barzani

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The president of Iraq's Kurdish region criticised the central government on Tuesday for its failure to draw up a clear law on sharing oil revenues and said the Kurds would hold on to what they earn for now.

Speaking during a visit to the European Parliament, Masoud Barzani said Kurdistan had the right to retain the income from the export of about 100,000 barrels of oil per day, despite a law stating that all Iraq's oil and gas assets are shared.

"The Iraqi oil ministry has failed ... in their laws and therefore we are not obliged to adhere to the oil laws of Iraq because they have failed in producing a much more transparent situation," Barzani told a news conference.

Independence Hub may resume production Tues - owner

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The Independence Hub, a major hub for natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, may resume production Tuesday evening as workers return to the facility following the passage of Tropical Storm Ida, said owner Enterprise Products Partners.

The fight over the future of food

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON/MILAN (Reuters) - At first glance, Giuseppe Oglio's farm near Milan looks like it's suffering from neglect. Weeds run rampant amid the rice fields and clover grows unchecked around his millet crop.

Oglio, a third generation farmer eschews modern farming techniques -- chemicals, fertilizers, heavy machinery -- in favor of a purely natural approach. It is not just ecological, he says, but profitable, and he believes his system can be replicated in starving regions of the globe.

Nearly 5,000 miles away, in laboratories in St. Louis, Missouri, hundreds of scientists at the world's biggest seed company, Monsanto, also want to feed the world, only their tools of choice are laser beams and petri dishes.

Carbon capture projects around the world

A quick survey of carbon capture projects and efforts around the world:

Power for U.S. From Russia’s Old Nuclear Weapons

MOSCOW — What’s powering your home appliances?

For about 10 percent of electricity in the United States, it’s fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, including Russian ones.

“It’s a great, easy source” of fuel, said Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Bank and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry that has profited from the arrangement since the end of the cold war.

But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn’t secured soon, the pipeline could run dry, with ramifications for consumers, as well as some American utilities and their Russian suppliers.

The Peak of the Oil Age - The Uppsala World Energy Outlook

A new study has been accepted for publication in the journal of Energy Policy. The article performs an analysis of the oil production forecast done by the International Energy Agency in 2008 and highlights several shortcomings as well as confirms other parts.

'Collapse' is the strangest doomsday film yet

It's telling that Hollywood also has a batch of scary, post-apocalyptic films coming our way. Roland Emmerich's "2012" takes off this weekend, promising a vivid, special-effects-filled look at the Earth's possible demise. There are more bad vibes in the air. John Hillcoat's brooding adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" opens this month, offering a bleak view of a father and son attempting to survive in an ash-covered America. Denzel Washington returns, "Road Warrior" style, in January, starring in "The Book of Eli," another stark, days-end vision of the future.

But what is surely the strangest film about our doomsday fantasies arrives Friday. Called "Collapse," it features a spellbindingly weird one-man monologue by Michael Ruppert, a former LAPD officer and investigative journalist who believes that we are about to run out of oil, an event sure to plunge the world into a state of collapse. If you ever thought it was impossible to top Beck's over-the-top fantasies, listen to Ruppert who says that "what I see now is the end of a paradigm that is as cataclysmic as the asteroid event that killed almost all the life on Earth, and certainly the dinosaurs."

Tropical Storm Ida activity statistics update

Offshore oil and gas operators in the Gulf of Mexico are evacuating platforms and rigs in the path of Tropical Storm Ida. The Minerals Management Service’s Continuity of Operations Plan team is monitoring the operators’ activities. This team will be activated until operations return to normal and the storm is no longer a threat to the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas activities.

Based on data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 a.m. CST today, personnel have been evacuated from a total of 126 production platforms, equivalent to 18.1 % of the 694 manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Production platforms are the structures located offshore from which oil and natural gas are produced. These structures remain in the same location throughout a project’s duration unlike drilling rigs which typically move from location to location.

Floods force Mexico to shut 20,000 bpd oil - paper

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's state oil company Pemex has been forced to shut down approximately 20,000 barrels per day of oil production due to flooding, Reforma newspaper reported on Monday.

Pemex was not immediately able to confirm or deny the report, which cited local Pemex executive Jose Serrano.

Heavy rains have caused extensive flooding in Mexico's Tabasco state.

A Reuters photographer in the region witnessed several flooded oil installations in Tabasco and neighboring Veracruz state, including what appeared to be a drilling site, crude oil separation tanks, and a pipeline manifold.

Special Report: Improved oil, gas demand, price forecasts raise drilling rig trend

The US working drilling rig count has started to reverse its steep drop as expectations for crude and gas prices and demand have become more bullish.

Angolan Oil Output To Surge Over Next 5 Years

LONDON - Angola's oil industry is booming as money pours in after the end of three decades of civil war, and officials say output could increase by as much as two-thirds over the next five years.

Buoyed by a scramble for energy and raw materials by China and other emerging nations, oil companies are spending tens of billions of dollars drilling oil and gas wells deep below the Atlantic many miles off the African coast. Production capacity has increased steadily over the last two years and oil analysts say Angola could now comfortably pump at least 2 million barrels per day (bpd) and is increasingly only held back by political constraints.

Shell’s Nigerian Oil Output Yet to Recover After Rebel Amnesty

(Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc, operator of Nigeria’s largest oil venture, has yet to see a rebound in output after a three-month truce that’s quelled violence in the country’s crude producing region, production reports show.

Combined output from ventures operated by Shell Development Production Co. and Shell Nigeria and Exploration and Production Co. fell 10 percent to 410,690 barrels a day at the end of October from early September, according to reports obtained by Bloomberg News. Precious Okolobo, a Shell spokesman in Nigeria, declined to comment on the figures. “We continue to repair facilities to try and bring up production,” he said.

Ukraine to convert IMF cash to pay for Russian gas

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine will convert Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) from the International Monetary Fund to pay for November's Russian gas bill, Deputy Prime Minister Hryhory Nemyrya told a television channel late on Monday. SDRs are a nominal monetary unit of the IMF. In August the fund injected about $250 billion of liquidity to its 186 members and Ukraine received the equivalent of $2 billion. Ukraine has been paying around $500 million a month for Russian gas. EU leaders are concerned Kiev may fall behind its payments for Russian gas, prompting another energy crisis that in January led to supply cuts affecting hundreds of thousands in Europe.

ADNOC takes a knock as Japanese oil imports decline

The UAE and its chief oil producer, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), have taken the hardest hit from a decline in Japanese oil purchases.

In recent years, Japan has been the biggest buyer of ADNOC’s crude, placing the UAE consistently among the top two oil exporters to Asia’s biggest economy.

But in September, Japan’s oil imports from the country had dropped 28 per cent from a year earlier, by more than 278,000 barrels per day (bpd), Japanese government figures show. The decline was equal to 12 per cent of the Emirates’ total September oil output of about 2.23 million bpd.

Raymond J. Learsy: The Price of Oil and the Massacre at Fort Hood

The relationship between the price of oil and the slaughter that took place at Fort Hood is hardly as far-fetched as it would appear. In an instructive article that was reprinted as an Op-ed in the NY Post on Saturday Nov 7, one Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, Executive Director of the Center of Islamic Pluralism, talks about the influences that apparently formed Major Nidal Hassan's murderous hatred.

The Philippines: Price freeze sparks supply problems at gas stations

MANILA - Some gas stations in the provinces have begun to report low fuel inventories and untimely deliveries, raising fears that the government-imposed ceiling on prices have sparked a supply shortage.

Qatar: Diesel crisis blamed on hoarding

DOHA: A temporary diesel crisis that hit some petrol stations in the country recently following alleged hoarding and black marketing by some shady operators is over, it is learnt.

The Ministry of Interior had to intervene and come up with a novel idea of setting up a number of committees with petrol station workers also on them, to keep a strict vigil on the affected facilities.

Ecuador Government Declares Electricity Emergency Due to Blackouts

QUITO – The Ecuadorian government declared an emergency in the electricity sector due to a generating shortfall at the nation’s biggest hydroelectric plant, which has forced the adoption of energy rationing programs across the country.

Somali pirates attack another oil tanker

LOS ANGELES -- Somali pirates, firing rocket-propelled grenades at a Hong Kong-flagged oil tanker, have launched their deepest attack ever into the Indian Ocean, according to the European Union Naval Force (EU Navfor).

“This was the longest range of a pirate attack off the Somali coast ever,” EU Navfor said. The attack on the BW Lion was launched by pirates in two fast attack skiffs 400 nautical miles northeast of the Seychelles and 1,000 nautical miles east of Mogadishu.

Barack Obama says he will go to Copenhagen climate change conference

A key global treaty to stop global warming almost collapsed last week after poorer nations threatened to walk out unless rich countries like America agree to cut their emissions.

However President Obama said he thinks a deal can still be done and he will go to Denmark in mid-December to make sure it happens.

Spain's windfarms set new national record for electricity generation

Wind energy provided more than half of Spain's total electricity needs for several hours over the weekend as the country set a new national record for wind-generated power.

With high winds gusting across much of the country, Spain's huge network of windfarms jointly poured the equivalent of 11 nuclear power stations' worth of electricity into the national grid.

International Energy Agency warns falling investment risk to economic recovery

PARIS (AP) — The global financial crisis has led to a dangerous drop in energy investment around the world which could choke off the nascent economic recovery, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday.

...The IEA, a policy adviser to 28 mostly industrialized oil-consuming nations, estimates that the financial and economic crisis is responsible for a $90 billion drop in global oil and gas investment this year, a 19 percent cut from 2008.

"Falling energy investment will have far-reaching and, depending on how governments respond, potentially serious consequences for energy security, climate change and energy poverty," the IEA said in its annual World Energy Outlook report.

The resulting drop in oil and electricity supplies could "undermine the sustainability of the economic recovery," the IEA warned.

IEA Cuts 2030 Oil Demand Forecast on Economy, Climate Policy

(Bloomberg) -- The International Energy Agency cut its long-term forecast for global oil demand as the economic crisis saps consumption in developed economies and environmental policies encourage alternative energy use.

Global oil demand is expected to advance 1 percent a year to 105 million barrels a day by 2030 from 85 million barrels a day in 2008, the adviser to 28 nations said today in its annual World Energy Outlook. The figure is below last year’s 2030 estimate of 106 million barrels a day.

“The global financial crisis and ensuing recession have had a dramatic impact on the outlook for energy markets,” the Paris-based agency said in its executive summary of the report. “World energy demand in aggregate has already plunged with the economic contraction.”

IEA report sees oil price at $100 a barrel in 2020

PARIS: The International Energy Agency forecast on Tuesday that the oil price would be $100 a barrel in 2020 and $115 in 2030, saying oil demand would rise by one percent per year.

Energy demand to rise rapidly without CO2 deal: IEA

World energy consumption will rise rapidly over the next 20 years, pushing up costs and increasing greenhouse gases, unless a deal is reached to curb carbon dioxide emissions, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday.

In its annual World Energy Outlook, the IEA said global energy demand would increase by an average of 2.5 per cent per year over the next five years if governments made no changes to their existing policies and measures.

IEA Expects Gas Glut as Unconventional Output Rises

(Bloomberg) -- There may be an “acute glut” of natural gas in the next few years because of rising production of so-called unconventional fuel in the U.S. and Canada, according to the International Energy Agency.

Global unconventional gas output will rise to 629 billion cubic meters in 2030 from 367 billion cubic meters in 2007, or to 15 percent of worldwide supply from 12 percent, the Paris- based adviser to 28 countries said in its annual World Energy Outlook. Gas supply capacity is set to outpace annual demand growth of 2.5 percent between 2010 and 2015, the IEA said.

“The looming gas glut could have far-reaching consequences for the structure of gas markets and for the way gas is priced in Europe and Asia-Pacific,” the IEA said in the report today.

IEA says oil-gas price link may break

An oversupply of natural gas NG-FT and continuing pressure on oil CL-FT supplies could break the link between gas and oil prices, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday.

In many parts of the world outside the United States gas prices are contractually linked to world oil prices but this link has been under pressure in a market that looks awash with cheap gas for years ahead.

Oil stat shock

What the Guardian is saying is that the IEA has been massaging its figures on account of pressure from the US government.

As Morgan Downey over at Scarce Whales points out, that’s a very grave allegation indeed; the IEA after all is an OECD taxpayer-funded institution.

But given the numbers of abrupt revisions the IEA has had to make to its forecasts of late would it be too much of surprise?

As the Guardian states the body is expected to publish its latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply on Tuesday, with the market expecting some “substantial” downward revisions to its long-term forecast for global oil demand.

Kevin Drum: Watching the Watchdog

It's pretty much impossible to know how seriously to take this. It's almost certainly true that analysts within the IEA disagree with each other about long-term projections, and it's also probably true that there are regional pressures of various kinds within the organization. That's pretty normal for international groups.

But is the U.S. actively pushing the IEA to produce figures that it knows to be wrong? And are these two anonymous sources the first ones to ever go public with this? Hmmm. I'm not so sure about that. But the IEA's 2009 World Energy Outlook comes out on Tuesday (last year's projections are above), and we'll see what they have to say then.

Ida makes landfall on U.S. Gulf Coast, hits oil supply

MOBILE, Alabama (Reuters) – A weakening Tropical Storm Ida lashed the U.S. Gulf Coast with drenching rain and high surf on Tuesday as it moved ashore after shutting down almost 30 percent of Gulf of Mexico energy production.

Ida, once a Category 2 hurricane, made its first U.S. landfall at around 6:40 a.m. EST on Dauphin island, the barrier island off Mobile, Alabama, packing maximum sustained winds of 45 miles per hour (75 kilometers per hour).

The Backside of Peak Oil

It's no secret that production in the United States has been tumbling down the backside of peak oil for the last three decades.

I haven't met anyone that believes U.S. production will ever return to its 1970 production level. Believe me, peak oil in the U.S. isn't a myth. It's about as real as it gets.

In fact, it gets downright ugly when you look at our top oil producers.

Let's take a closer look. . .

Goldman Keeps Crude Forecast at $85 a Barrel by End of Year

(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is maintaining its forecast for West Texas Intermediate crude to reach $85 a barrel by the end of this year and $95 next year as it expects the market to shift into a “global deficit” in coming months.

“Strong activity” in China’s petrochemical and metals sectors is likely to provide support to global oil demand, while production outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is set to decline, generating “further price and returns upside,” Goldman’s analysts led by Allison Nathan said in a report dated Nov. 9.

CNN Student News: Economy News

JONATHAN STERN, OXFORD INSTITUTE FOR ENERGY STUDIES: National oil companies and their governments have taken over the access to all their oil. So, anything that is cheap and easy to produce they will do themselves. They now have the technology and the money to buy the technology. They don't need the IOCs for that.

DEFTERIOS: The IOCs, or international oil companies, are left battling it out for more costly prizes where their expertise and technology remain in demand. Recent discoveries in Kazakhstan, the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Brazil have allayed fears of what many call peak oil, the term used to describe falling global production. The new finds, however, come with a heftier price tag.

World oil demand to grow 700,000 bpd in 2010 - OPEC

DOHA (Reuters) - Global oil demand will grow 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2010, OPEC's Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri said in a speech delivered on his behalf on Tuesday.

China and India will lead global economic growth next year, with the producer group forecasting world GDP growth at 2.7 percent next year, up from an earlier forecast of 2.3 percent in July, he said in the text of a speech.

OPEC Won’t Raise Output Because of Stockpiles, Qabazard Says

(Bloomberg) -- OPEC won’t need to raise oil production levels when it meets next month in Angola because stockpiles are “very high,” the group’s head of research said.

“I don’t see that production should be increased,” Hasan Qabazard said in an interview today in Doha, Qatar. “Stocks are a worry, particularly the product stocks. At current calculations we will go to stock build early next year.”

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries made a record 4.2 million barrel-a-day cut in production targets last year as fuel demand tumbled during the worst recession since the 1930s. The group has left quotas unchanged at its three meetings this year.

China slashes Iraq debt for oil deals

China has agreed to forgive 80% of $8.47 billion in debt owed by Iraq, sealing a preliminary deal struck more than two years ago, Iraqi officials said today.

The agreement comes as China's imports of Iraqi crude rise and Chinese oil companies like China National Petroleum Corporation eye contracts to develop Iraq's vast oil reserves as the world's 11th largest oil producer emerges from years of war and sectarian bloodshed.

ANALYSIS - Oil rally complicates China fuel pricing

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's latest fuel price rise may be its last easy fuel pricing decision for a while.

Under a pricing regime that links retail fuel prices to the the global cost of crude, the government upped pump prices for gasoline and diesel by about 7 percent from Tuesday, taking them to the highest ever.

But the system's clarity, the main reason for its introduction at the start of the year, only operates when crude is below $80 a barrel, a level the global benchmark is bumping up against.

China May Have to Raise Gas Price on Higher Costs

(Bloomberg) -- China, the world’s second-largest energy user, must increase domestic natural gas prices to accommodate higher-priced supplies from Qatar and Central Asia, an analyst said.

Liquefied natural gas supplies from Qatar on multiyear contracts may cost 3.95 yuan per cubic meter, or about $16 per million British thermal units after regasification, at the city gate, about 58 percent higher than what households and businesses pay for the fuel in Shanghai, said Tony Regan, a consultant at Tri-Zen International Ltd.

Newcastle Weekly Coal Exports Fall; Ship Queue Rises

(Bloomberg) -- Coal shipments from Australia’s Newcastle port, the world’s biggest export harbor for the fuel, fell by 11 percent last week while the number of vessels waiting to load increased.

E.ON Sells Grid to Tennet for 1.1 Billion Euros to End Probe

(Bloomberg) -- E.ON AG sold its German power network to Dutch electricity-grid operator Tennet BV for 1.1 billion euros ($1.7 billion) to help settle a three-year European Union probe into whether it thwarted competition.

Taylor claims US sought to oust him from power

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Charles Taylor claims he was indicted for war crimes as part of a U.S. "regime change" plan to gain control of West African oil reserves.

The former Liberian president has made the allegation in a typically defiant final day of direct testimony in his own defense at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

PTTEP Won’t Comment on Oil Spill Cause Amid News Report Claim

Bloomberg) -- PTT Exploration & Production Pcl, facing an Australian investigation into the country’s third- worst oil spill, declined to comment on a news article that said the Timor Sea leak was caused by improper capping of a well.

“The company is declining to comment on the possible cause of the incident ahead of the Federal commission of inquiry,” Roley Myers, Perth-based spokesman for the Thai company, said by phone today. The company has seen the news article, he said.

Pennsylvania lawsuit says drilling polluted water

AVELLA, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania landowner is suing an energy company for polluting his soil and water in an attempt to link a natural gas drilling technique with environmental contamination.

George Zimmermann, the owner of 480 acres in Washington County, southwest Pennsylvania, says Atlas Energy Inc. ruined his land with toxic chemicals used in or released there by hydraulic fracturing.

‘Reclaim town hearts’

“We have constructed urban places for the last 50 years assuming cars have primacy, with everything built around them,” he said.

“That was the thinking from the 1950s to the 1990s, but now, in the noughties, we are getting different impressions.”

Dr Tolley said health through exercise, Peak Oil and climate change are all forcing changes on our designs and have “put pedestrians and cyclists back on the top of the pile”.

Communities try to prevent pedestrian traffic deaths

Some communities are working to curtail sudden, puzzling increases in pedestrian traffic deaths while safety advocates urge states to spend more federal transportation dollars on sidewalks, crosswalks and safety programs for walkers and bicyclists.

More than 76,000 Americans have been killed walking or crossing the street in the past 15 years, and pedestrians account for about 11.8% of all traffic fatalities, according to the groups Transportation for America and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership. However, less than 1.5% of federal transportation money is spent on projects for walkers and bicyclists.

Of fish and men: A fable of modern times

Do you think that the US are frantically trying to look for alternate sources of energy just because of climate change? In a decade or so, the petrochemical refinery will most likely be a white elephant, whereas the skills of the fisher folk and the mangrove forest will be vital in keeping their neighbours alive.

Local resilience has started to become a concept that is being propagated by more and more grassroots NGOs the world over. But you can't have local resilience without a working local eco-system.

Crude World

In Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil, Maass presents humanity with a snapshot of the implications of our oil addiction. Examining oil collection and storage and transportation from locales in the furthest reaches of the globe, “Crude World” is authentic, persuasive, and damning.

“Across the world,” Maass writes, “oil is invoked as a machine of destiny. Oil will make you rich, oil will make you poor, oil will bring war, oil will deliver peace, oil will define our world as much as the glaciers did in the Ice Age.” “Crude World” depicts the inner workings of this petroleum machine to “reveal an order in the world’s disorder.” The power to create great opportunity is part of the myth of petroleum; Maass travels the globe in order to create lively vignettes of the opposite destiny.

Solar Thermal Electricity Production to Jump 100-Fold, IEA Says

(Bloomberg) -- Power generation using giant mirrors and solar panels to concentrate the sun’s rays and turn turbines will expand more than 100-fold over the next two decades, according to the International Energy Agency.

Solar thermal production will increase to 124 terawatt hours of energy in 2030 from less than 1 TWh in 2007, the Paris- based group said today in its annual energy outlook report.

Japan eyes solar station in space

TOKYO (AFP) – It may sound like a sci-fi vision, but Japan's space agency is dead serious: by 2030 it wants to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth, using laser beams or microwaves.

The government has just picked a group of companies and a team of researchers tasked with turning the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar dream of unlimited clean energy into reality in coming decades.

U.A.E. Atomic Program May Propel Region Into Nuclear Arms Race

(Bloomberg) -- The United Arab Emirates, which plans to award the Persian Gulf’s first nuclear power contracts this year, may start a regional arms race as its neighbors seek similar technology, according to a Chatham House report.

“Risks from nuclear proliferation cannot be eliminated entirely” from the U.A.E.’s program, Ian Jackson wrote in “Nuclear Energy and Proliferation Risks: Myths and Realities in the Persian Gulf,” published today. “It is possible that the genuine desire of Gulf states to engage in civil peaceful nuclear power could possibly tip the region into a nuclear arms race, especially if state intentions are misunderstood.”

Recession Opens ‘Narrow Window’ to Cut Global CO2, IEA Says

(Bloomberg) -- The global economic crisis has opened “a relatively narrow window of opportunity” to halt the increase in greenhouse gases released by power plants, factories and cars through 2020, the International Energy Agency said.

Annual emissions from using energy may peak at 30.9 billion tons over the coming decade, assuming there is “radical and coordinated policy action across all regions,” the Paris-based agency said today in its World Energy Outlook. The report reiterated estimates first published on Oct. 6, including its forecast that global energy use is set to decline this year for the first time since 1991 because of the recession.

“The financial crisis offers what maybe we a unique opportunity to take necessary steps as the political mood shifts,” the IEA report says. “But this saving will count for nothing if a robust deal is not reached in Copenhagen.”

Texas Gov. Perry: Cap-and-trade would harm state

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Rick Perry told renewable energy industry officials that a cap-and-trade climate bill in Congress would increase taxes and devastate the state's energy sector.

Perry, contending that the climate bill would mean "economic disaster" in Texas, said the state is encouraging alternative energy sources while improving the environment.

Climate change makes English winemakers see red

DORKING, England (Reuters) – The pickers working their way along the hillside, clipping bunches of small, dark purple grapes from the rows of vines and dropping them into plastic buckets are harbingers of a warmer planet.

In recent years, aided by milder springs and autumns, a few British wineries have revived a red winemaking tradition which died around 600 years ago.

US seeks climate framework, not legal pact: experts

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Lack of action on the climate change bill bogged down in the US Senate will not stop Washington from seeking a framework to curb carbon emissions at next month's summit in Copenhagen, experts say.

"I don't think that anyone is expecting a legal pact at this point," Michael Levi, an expert on climate issues at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP.

But US President Barack Obama already hinted this week that the United States would seek to create a "framework for progress" at the summit, which he said would pave the way to stem a "potential ecological disaster."

The Maldives' battle against extinction

As its own gesture the Maldives now aims to go "carbon-neutral" by 2020. That means switching to renewable energy sources where it can, and balancing the carbon it does emit through measures like planting forests elsewhere.

There is a major problem - the islands' main earner, top-end tourism, cannot be environmentally friendly. All the clients, and all manner of extraordinary luxury foods from Europe and elsewhere, are flown in.

Glorious vision in Kenya's sky melts away

Mt. Kenya's ice cap was so stunning that some began revering it as God's home. But most of the shining glacier has now disappeared, robbing communities of water and leading to a crisis of faith.

India environment minister under fire over glaciers

India's environment minister came under fire Tuesday from scientists for denying climate change was causing Himalayan glaciers to melt and disputing the work of the UN's top global warming body.

On Monday, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said there was no "conclusive scientific evidence" linking global warming to the melting of the glaciers and questioned work by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC, a UN body regarded as the world's top authority on climate change, has warned Himalayan glaciers are receding faster than in any other part of the world and could "disappear altogether by 2035 if not sooner".